Chocolate Sour Cream Cupcakes w/Chocolate Bourbon Frosting

I took a risk and made a baked goods recipe from a random food blog, with my own modifications! This has burned me before, but this one was pretty successful. I don't bake much, but when I do I always try to follow a reliable recipe (as opposed to my freeform cooking style for other things). I was looking for an easyish chocolate cake recipe for husband's birthday with ingredients I had on hand (cocoa; no actual chocolate)...then looked for cupcakes because I wanted to share some with a neighbor friend...and also looked for a small batch recipe because we don't need a huge batch of cupcakes! 

This recipe from The Spruce Eats seemed to fit the bill. I'm also not a huge cake person, but I always like cakes made with sour cream (super moist!) and I had some on hand. I also don't like super-sweet frosting, so I found a recipe somewhere else that also incorporated sour cream - it's kinda like cream cheese frosting. I scaled the frosting recipe down and it still made more than needed for a dozen cupcakes (of which I only got 11 out of this batch!). But there's nothing wrong with eating some extra frosting by the spoonful!

So here you go - a reasonable dozen-ish batch of moist chocolate cupcakes with not-too-sweet frosting, using only cocoa!

Chocolate Sour Cream Cupcakes

- 1/2 cup brewed coffee, or water
- 1/4 cup butter (I used salted butter which is what I have on hand. If you use unsalted butter, up the salt to 1/2 tsp)
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1 egg
- 1/2 cup sour cream
- 1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 and line 12 muffin cups with paper liners.

In a small saucepan, melt butter with coffee or water until simmering. Add sugar & cocoa powder and mix/whisk well, until thoroughly combined. Remove from heat & cool slightly.

Sift flour, salt, baking powder & soda together in a mixing bowl. In a small bowl, beat egg with sour cream & vanilla.

Add butter/cocoa mixture to dry ingredients alternately with sour cream mixture. Mix until just combined.

Fill muffin cups 2/3 full (I only got 11 out of my batch). Bake for about 20 minutes, until a tester comes out clean. Cool for a few minutes, then remove cupcakes from pan and cool completely before frosting.

Chocolate Bourbon Frosting

- 1/3 cup butter, softened (I used salted; if you use unsalted, add a pinch of salt)
- 1/4 cup cocoa powder
- 1 3/4 cup powdered sugar
- 1/3 cup sour cream
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 Tbl (ish) bourbon. Or use brewed coffee, or milk.

Place softened butter in a mixing bowl and sift cocoa powder & sugar into it. Add sour cream and vanilla, then bourbon or other liquid. Beat well - you can add more bourbon if you want it boozier or gooier. If it seems to gooey, try refrigerating it and it may firm up - and/or add more powdered sugar.

Ze finished product:

Pre-frosting:

One-Pot Lemon Chicken, Rice & Broccoli

This was last night's quick "band dinner" and I decided it's a keeper. Didn't get a photo of it last night, so just grabbed one of the leftovers! We got a bunch of lemons in our last Hungry Harvest box, so this used up some of those. A good easy comfort meal with bright flavor. For a vegan option, I think chickpeas would be good instead of the chicken: just dump in a drained/rinsed can when you add the broccoli, use veggie broth and add the lemon pepper with the other seasonings. Or, you could even oven-roast your chickpeas with the lemon pepper until they're crispy, and add them on top of each serving! 

- 1 lb boneless chicken breast or thighs
- lemon pepper seasoning
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2-4 garlic cloves, minced
- 2 cups long grain white rice (jasmine is good)
- 1/4 tsp tumeric (optional, but makes it a nice yellow color)
- 1/2 tsp dried thyme
- 1 box (4 cups) low-sodium chicken stock
- 1 head broccoli, cut into small florets (use the stems too!). Or use frozen broccoli.
- 1-2 lemons (grate the zest & squeeze the juice of one; the other can be sliced for optional garnish & more lemony-ness)

Cut the chicken into bite-sized pieces and season with lemon pepper and salt (I also added some Penzey's Mural of Flavor and Black & Red for an extra kick). Let sit for a few minutes while you prep other ingredients (or you can do it a few hours ahead and marinate in the fridge).

Heat a Dutch oven or large pot/skillet on medium high and add some olive oil. Saute the chicken until just browned; it doesn't need to cook all the way through. Remove to a bowl.

Saute the onion until softened, add the garlic and stir briefly, then add the rice. Stir for a couple minutes. There will be some browning on the bottom of the pot, that's good. Add the turmeric and thyme.

Add some of the chicken stock and stir well to loosen up the brown bits. Then add the rest of the stock (you might not need it all, but I ended up using the whole box. It's OK if it's a little soupy at the end). Cover the pot and cook for 10 minutes. 

Add the chicken, broccoli, and lemon juice & zest. Stir well, cover and cook for another 10-15 minutes or until the rice is fully cooked. Garnish with lemon slices, if you like.